The managements of private schools in Bengaluru are sitting up and taking notice after yet another school bus driver was booked for drunken driving.
Bengaluru’s Yelahanka traffic police booked Anand (28) for drunk driving. Anand is a driver with Narayana Techno School in Attur Layout. In the past month, several such cases have been reported.
President of the Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) Shashi Kumar D told The News Minute that the association had taken notice of the cases.
He said that the association was contemplating purchasing alcometers and using them to check the alcohol levels of drivers every morning. However, there were several issues that needed to be taken into consideration, he said.
He explained that some institutions had a large fleet of buses which could go up to about 100, while others had a handful. In some instances, schools would have hired agencies to supply the buses.
In some instances, drivers would have long pick-up and drop routes running up to several kilometres. “If a driver has a 20km routes, he would park the vehicle closer to his place of residence and not the school.”
He said that parents would not help out by taking responsibility to check if the driver was inebriated during duty hours or not. “Parents only know how to blame. They hardly volunteer for any social cause,” Shashi Kumar said.
Keeping these circumstances in mind, Shashi Kumar said he would as a trial use an alcometer at his own institution run by New Blossom Education Society, which has four buses. “I have to figure out where I can buy a reliable alcometer and how to use it. Also, if a driver drinks in the night and turns up for work with some levels of alcohol, then we need to figure out a way to deal with that,” he said.